FILME- UMA RAZÃO PARA CANTAR
Sunday, March 2, 2014
A Vida É um Desafio
Maria Fontaine
Porque sou eu que conheço os planos que tenho para vocês", diz o Senhor, "planos de fazê-los prosperar e não de lhes causar dano, planos de dar-lhes esperança e um futuro. —Jeremias 29:11[1]
Enfrentar oposição e adversidades muitas vezes nos lança em situações e nos coloca em contato com pessoas que nunca terÃamos condições de conhecer de outra maneira.Às vezes, o Senhor abre portas através de situações aparentemente negativas, as quais só poderiam se abrir dessa forma. Se estivermos em sintonia com Ele e seguirmos o Seu plano, eventualmente veremos as oportunidades que o Senhor nos ofereceu por meio dos desafios.[2] Conforme manifestarmos a nossa fé por meio do louvor a Deus, Ele nos ajudará a ter uma atitude positiva e cheia de fé, e reagir à situação tomando decisões sábias e guiadas pelo espÃrito.
Por pior que as circunstâncias pareçam num primeiro momento, ou a dificuldade e desafios que apresentem,certamente o Senhor tem um plano. Qualquer que seja a oposição ou adversidade, devemos procurar as oportunidades que o Senhor tem a oferecer e Lhe pedir para mostrar as vantagens da situação.
Winston Churchill disse certa vez: “Dificuldades dominadas são oportunidades ganhas”. Ele é também autor do famoso pensamento: “O pessimista vê a dificuldade em cada oportunidade; o otimista vê uma oportunidade em cada dificuldade”. Vamos então pedir ao Senhor para nos ajudar a dominar as dificuldades procurando oportunidades em toda adversidade.
Vamos abraçar os desafios que a oposição nos apresentar!Vamos dizer ao Senhor que estamos preparados. Na verdade, queremos que Ele nos dê essas oportunidades, se são necessárias para termos oportunidade de dar fruto para Ele e cumprirmos a Sua vontade.
Vamos nos concentrar nas oportunidades e vitórias que o Senhor nos reservou. Ele disse que a vereda dos Seus filhos é como a luz da aurora, que brilha mais e mais até ser dia perfeito, então podemos contar com um caminho iluminado pela Sua luz, não importam as circunstâncias.[3]
Jesus diz:
A vida não é sempre um mar de rosas, e nem tudo sempre flui e podemos seguir caminho em paz, sem empecilhos ou imprevistos para os retardar. A vida é feita de lutas, de desafios que exigem que aprimorem as qualidades de perseverança, determinação, e firmeza de convicção. É preciso encarar e desfrutar de obstáculos aparentemente instransponÃveis, confiando no Meu poder para ajudá-los a superar.
Os pontos altos são quando estão na crista da onda, seguindo a todo vapor. Devem ousar pegar a onda e ficar por cima, em vez de sentados na praia evitando o desafio. Jamais superarão os desafios da vida ou alcançarão novas alturas se ficarem encolhidos nos locais seguros, e procurarem o caminho mais fácil.
Viver por Mim deveria ser um desafio. Vocês estão em guerra, uma guerra espiritual e a mais importante já travada, pela causa mais justa, para obterem resultados eternos, ou seja, a salvação da humanidade e a preparação da Terra para o Meu Reino.
Guerra tem tudo a ver com oposição. São dois exércitos adversários se enfrentando, cada um determinado a ser o vitorioso e levar o troféu. Vocês têm uma vantagem sobre os exércitos tradicionais, porque a sua vitória foi profetizada desde os primórdios do tempo. O seu sucesso é garantido, determinado no Céu. Precisam apenas enfrentar todo tipo de oposição usando as armas espirituais que lhes estão disponÃveis, decididos a vencer cada batalha.
Um combatente veterano vive para a batalha. Essa é a sua vida e vocação. Ele sabe que foi chamado para lutar e está preparado para as batalhas. Se conseguirem ver o antagonismo como um desafio e oportunidade de pegarem a onda para ganharem mais velocidade e chegarem ainda mais longe, não vão considerar a oposição algo negativo, um revés, ou empecilho para os seus planos. Busquem a Mim para transformar a oposição e as adversidades em oportunidades.
Quando pedirem pão, não vou lhes dar uma pedra. Se pedirem oportunidades não as ignorem caso se apresentem na forma de antagonismo. Agradeçam-Me pela oportunidade, e perguntem-Me como aproveitar ao máximo a limonada que conseguiram fazer com esse limão. Procurem conquistar o crescimento, progresso e avanço que desejo que resulte de toda adversidade. A Minha meta é que peguem a onda e subam mais alto do que nunca.
Está tudo relacionado à sua perspectiva e atitude. Oposição e adversidade os fortalecem e os ajudam a se tornarem os vitoriosos que devem ser.
Quando assumem a mentalidade de superar, vencer e conquistar a vitória, todo tipo de oposição e adversidade se torna uma oportunidade, um degrau para novas possibilidades e maiores vitórias.
Abracem as batalhas do dia antes de elas surgirem no horizonte. Talvez não saibam o que o dia trará, mas podem ter certeza que estarão prontos se recorrerem a Mim — prontos para entrarem na luta, mesmo desconhecendo os obstáculos, provas e dificuldades. As poderosas e fortes armas da sua guerra que lhes foram dadas são mais do que páreo para qualquer adversário.[4] Então, abracem a luta, a oposição e os obstáculos, que são os ingredientes da vitória.
A fórmula para conseguir enfrentar os ventos de oposição é pura e simplesmente ter fé. Precisam confiar que estou no comando. Por mais fortes que sejam as ondas que açoitam a embarcação Eu os guiarei até atravessarem a tempestade.
Vocês também terão suas funções como tripulantes. Mas será uma função pequena em comparação à Minha. Além de ficar no leme, ajudando-os a passar pelas águas agitadas, também posso acalmar o mar e cessar a tempestade depois que ela cumprir o seu propósito. Enfrentaremos as tempestades em equipe, vocês fazendo a sua parte, e Eu o resto.
Caso se sintam um pouco inseguros e tenham dificuldade para se manter firmes no convés, olhem para o leme e lembrem-se de Quem está no comando da embarcação. Não importam as circunstâncias— o tamanho das ondas de adversidade que açoitam a sua embarcação, a sua incapacidade de enfrentar os desafios — quero que cada oposição contribua de alguma forma para o seu bem, quer imediatamente, quer no futuro. Quero que aprendam a pegar as ondas e permitir que os levem a novas oportunidades para alcançarem outras pessoas com a Minha Palavra e verdade, chegando à s terras da Minha promessa, e a novos nÃveis de sabedoria e experiência.
Desfrutem dessa aventura e do vento soprando em seus cabelos! Desfrutem da oportunidade de exercitarem a sua fé e firmarem-se nas Minhas promessas. Em tempos de oposição, a vitória é uma questão de fé, não de ser perfeito ou nunca errar. Não tem a ver com o seu desempenho, mas sim com confiar em Mim, acreditando que juntos conseguiremos enfrentar qualquer tempestade e sair vencedores. O melhor que podem fazer é apostar tudo em Mim, e serão vitoriosos. É 100% garantido!
E Deus é poderoso para fazer que lhes seja acrescentada toda a graça, para que em todas as coisas, em todo o tempo, tendo tudo o que é necessário, vocês transbordem em toda boa obra.—2 CorÃntios 9:8[5]
Publicado originalmente em fevereiro 2009. Adaptado e republicado em novembro 2013. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.
[1] NVI.
[2] Romanos 8:28.
[3] Provérbios 4:18.
[4] 2 CorÃntios 10:4.
[5] ESV.
Porque sou eu que conheço os planos que tenho para vocês", diz o Senhor, "planos de fazê-los prosperar e não de lhes causar dano, planos de dar-lhes esperança e um futuro. —Jeremias 29:11[1]
Enfrentar oposição e adversidades muitas vezes nos lança em situações e nos coloca em contato com pessoas que nunca terÃamos condições de conhecer de outra maneira.Às vezes, o Senhor abre portas através de situações aparentemente negativas, as quais só poderiam se abrir dessa forma. Se estivermos em sintonia com Ele e seguirmos o Seu plano, eventualmente veremos as oportunidades que o Senhor nos ofereceu por meio dos desafios.[2] Conforme manifestarmos a nossa fé por meio do louvor a Deus, Ele nos ajudará a ter uma atitude positiva e cheia de fé, e reagir à situação tomando decisões sábias e guiadas pelo espÃrito.
Por pior que as circunstâncias pareçam num primeiro momento, ou a dificuldade e desafios que apresentem,certamente o Senhor tem um plano. Qualquer que seja a oposição ou adversidade, devemos procurar as oportunidades que o Senhor tem a oferecer e Lhe pedir para mostrar as vantagens da situação.
Winston Churchill disse certa vez: “Dificuldades dominadas são oportunidades ganhas”. Ele é também autor do famoso pensamento: “O pessimista vê a dificuldade em cada oportunidade; o otimista vê uma oportunidade em cada dificuldade”. Vamos então pedir ao Senhor para nos ajudar a dominar as dificuldades procurando oportunidades em toda adversidade.
Vamos abraçar os desafios que a oposição nos apresentar!Vamos dizer ao Senhor que estamos preparados. Na verdade, queremos que Ele nos dê essas oportunidades, se são necessárias para termos oportunidade de dar fruto para Ele e cumprirmos a Sua vontade.
Vamos nos concentrar nas oportunidades e vitórias que o Senhor nos reservou. Ele disse que a vereda dos Seus filhos é como a luz da aurora, que brilha mais e mais até ser dia perfeito, então podemos contar com um caminho iluminado pela Sua luz, não importam as circunstâncias.[3]
Jesus diz:
A vida não é sempre um mar de rosas, e nem tudo sempre flui e podemos seguir caminho em paz, sem empecilhos ou imprevistos para os retardar. A vida é feita de lutas, de desafios que exigem que aprimorem as qualidades de perseverança, determinação, e firmeza de convicção. É preciso encarar e desfrutar de obstáculos aparentemente instransponÃveis, confiando no Meu poder para ajudá-los a superar.
Os pontos altos são quando estão na crista da onda, seguindo a todo vapor. Devem ousar pegar a onda e ficar por cima, em vez de sentados na praia evitando o desafio. Jamais superarão os desafios da vida ou alcançarão novas alturas se ficarem encolhidos nos locais seguros, e procurarem o caminho mais fácil.
Viver por Mim deveria ser um desafio. Vocês estão em guerra, uma guerra espiritual e a mais importante já travada, pela causa mais justa, para obterem resultados eternos, ou seja, a salvação da humanidade e a preparação da Terra para o Meu Reino.
Guerra tem tudo a ver com oposição. São dois exércitos adversários se enfrentando, cada um determinado a ser o vitorioso e levar o troféu. Vocês têm uma vantagem sobre os exércitos tradicionais, porque a sua vitória foi profetizada desde os primórdios do tempo. O seu sucesso é garantido, determinado no Céu. Precisam apenas enfrentar todo tipo de oposição usando as armas espirituais que lhes estão disponÃveis, decididos a vencer cada batalha.
Um combatente veterano vive para a batalha. Essa é a sua vida e vocação. Ele sabe que foi chamado para lutar e está preparado para as batalhas. Se conseguirem ver o antagonismo como um desafio e oportunidade de pegarem a onda para ganharem mais velocidade e chegarem ainda mais longe, não vão considerar a oposição algo negativo, um revés, ou empecilho para os seus planos. Busquem a Mim para transformar a oposição e as adversidades em oportunidades.
Quando pedirem pão, não vou lhes dar uma pedra. Se pedirem oportunidades não as ignorem caso se apresentem na forma de antagonismo. Agradeçam-Me pela oportunidade, e perguntem-Me como aproveitar ao máximo a limonada que conseguiram fazer com esse limão. Procurem conquistar o crescimento, progresso e avanço que desejo que resulte de toda adversidade. A Minha meta é que peguem a onda e subam mais alto do que nunca.
Está tudo relacionado à sua perspectiva e atitude. Oposição e adversidade os fortalecem e os ajudam a se tornarem os vitoriosos que devem ser.
Quando assumem a mentalidade de superar, vencer e conquistar a vitória, todo tipo de oposição e adversidade se torna uma oportunidade, um degrau para novas possibilidades e maiores vitórias.
Abracem as batalhas do dia antes de elas surgirem no horizonte. Talvez não saibam o que o dia trará, mas podem ter certeza que estarão prontos se recorrerem a Mim — prontos para entrarem na luta, mesmo desconhecendo os obstáculos, provas e dificuldades. As poderosas e fortes armas da sua guerra que lhes foram dadas são mais do que páreo para qualquer adversário.[4] Então, abracem a luta, a oposição e os obstáculos, que são os ingredientes da vitória.
A fórmula para conseguir enfrentar os ventos de oposição é pura e simplesmente ter fé. Precisam confiar que estou no comando. Por mais fortes que sejam as ondas que açoitam a embarcação Eu os guiarei até atravessarem a tempestade.
Vocês também terão suas funções como tripulantes. Mas será uma função pequena em comparação à Minha. Além de ficar no leme, ajudando-os a passar pelas águas agitadas, também posso acalmar o mar e cessar a tempestade depois que ela cumprir o seu propósito. Enfrentaremos as tempestades em equipe, vocês fazendo a sua parte, e Eu o resto.
Caso se sintam um pouco inseguros e tenham dificuldade para se manter firmes no convés, olhem para o leme e lembrem-se de Quem está no comando da embarcação. Não importam as circunstâncias— o tamanho das ondas de adversidade que açoitam a sua embarcação, a sua incapacidade de enfrentar os desafios — quero que cada oposição contribua de alguma forma para o seu bem, quer imediatamente, quer no futuro. Quero que aprendam a pegar as ondas e permitir que os levem a novas oportunidades para alcançarem outras pessoas com a Minha Palavra e verdade, chegando à s terras da Minha promessa, e a novos nÃveis de sabedoria e experiência.
Desfrutem dessa aventura e do vento soprando em seus cabelos! Desfrutem da oportunidade de exercitarem a sua fé e firmarem-se nas Minhas promessas. Em tempos de oposição, a vitória é uma questão de fé, não de ser perfeito ou nunca errar. Não tem a ver com o seu desempenho, mas sim com confiar em Mim, acreditando que juntos conseguiremos enfrentar qualquer tempestade e sair vencedores. O melhor que podem fazer é apostar tudo em Mim, e serão vitoriosos. É 100% garantido!
E Deus é poderoso para fazer que lhes seja acrescentada toda a graça, para que em todas as coisas, em todo o tempo, tendo tudo o que é necessário, vocês transbordem em toda boa obra.—2 CorÃntios 9:8[5]
Publicado originalmente em fevereiro 2009. Adaptado e republicado em novembro 2013. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.
[1] NVI.
[2] Romanos 8:28.
[3] Provérbios 4:18.
[4] 2 CorÃntios 10:4.
[5] ESV.
Hebron still a divided city 20 years after mosque massacre
By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, February 28, 2014
HEBRON, West Bank—Nidal lives just steps from the mosque where his life changed forever.
It was there, during early morning prayers in 1994, that an Israeli physician named Baruch Goldstein walked in and opened fire, killing 29 Palestinians and wounding 125. Nidal, then 25 and engaged to be married, was shot twice in one arm and once in the back.
The massacre at the Ibrahim mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians in the West Bank city of Hebron, occurred 20 years ago this week. Like Nidal, who is unable to work because of his injuries, the city has never been the same.
With 170,000 residents, Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank, and perhaps its most sharply divided.
After the killings set off deadly riots, Israeli authorities moved to separate Hebron’s Palestinian residents from the several hundred Jewish settlers living in the heart of the Old City. Shuhada Street, once a vital commercial corridor, was closed to Palestinians, and dozens of military barricades and checkpoints were established.
Even the biblical burial ground—said to be the final resting place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah—was partitioned with separate prayer spaces for Muslims and Jews.
Israeli officials say the measures are necessary to protect both sides from persistent inter-communal violence in the city, just 20 miles from the heart of Jerusalem. Palestinians complain that the restrictions have targeted only them and have made the Old City virtually uninhabitable for non-Jews.
A report released last year by the United Nations found that thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the old quarter in recent years, and those who remain are forced to make long detours through multiple Israeli military checkpoints to access basic services, such as schools and hospitals.
In recent weeks, Palestinian activists have used the anniversary to demand a loosening of restrictions.
“We were victims, and now we’re being banished,” said Issa Amro, who heads a group called Youth Against Settlements that on Feb. 21 led a march calling for Shuhada Street to be reopened to Palestinians.
Nidal does not care for protests. He planned to mark the anniversary of the shooting by attending a small ceremony at the mosque, but he also wishes things would return to the way they were. Before the massacre, he could walk 100 feet from his home to the entrance of the mosque without having to pass through a checkpoint, and he could have guests over without Israeli permission.
“The cameras are on us all the time,” Nidal said. He asked to be identified by only his first name because he fears retribution from soldiers for inviting a journalist into his home without authorization.
Nidal had planned to skip prayers that morning 20 years ago. He was working at a construction site at the time and had told his mother that he needed a few extra hours of sleep. But when the dawn call to prayer rang out, he was inspired. He lurched out of bed, put on a suit and went to pray.
It was the holy month of Ramadan, and the mosque was crowded. Nidal was standing in the back of the hall, about to kneel, when the bullets struck him. He was one of the first people shot by Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born physician and member of the ultra-right Kach movement living in a settlement outside Hebron. Goldstein had often talked about his desire to clear Palestinians from land held by the Jewish people during biblical times.
Goldstein was beaten to death in the mosque by Palestinian worshipers; Nidal was taken to a hospital in Ramallah, where he underwent surgery that saved his life. He is now married, with two sons and two daughters, but has limited mobility in one arm and still suffers breathing problems.
Despite the presence of Israeli soldiers on nearly every block in the Old City, violence remains an almost everyday occurrence. The U.N. found that in 2012 and 2013, about 700 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces or settlers, and 44 Israelis were injured by Palestinians.
Nidal says he harbors no hostility.
“The person who shot me is dead,” he said. “Why should I carry this anger inside me?”
But he said it is difficult to pass through security points without thinking about the shooting at the mosque. “It’s a constant reminder,” he said.
HEBRON, West Bank—Nidal lives just steps from the mosque where his life changed forever.
It was there, during early morning prayers in 1994, that an Israeli physician named Baruch Goldstein walked in and opened fire, killing 29 Palestinians and wounding 125. Nidal, then 25 and engaged to be married, was shot twice in one arm and once in the back.
The massacre at the Ibrahim mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians in the West Bank city of Hebron, occurred 20 years ago this week. Like Nidal, who is unable to work because of his injuries, the city has never been the same.
With 170,000 residents, Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank, and perhaps its most sharply divided.
After the killings set off deadly riots, Israeli authorities moved to separate Hebron’s Palestinian residents from the several hundred Jewish settlers living in the heart of the Old City. Shuhada Street, once a vital commercial corridor, was closed to Palestinians, and dozens of military barricades and checkpoints were established.
Even the biblical burial ground—said to be the final resting place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah—was partitioned with separate prayer spaces for Muslims and Jews.
Israeli officials say the measures are necessary to protect both sides from persistent inter-communal violence in the city, just 20 miles from the heart of Jerusalem. Palestinians complain that the restrictions have targeted only them and have made the Old City virtually uninhabitable for non-Jews.
A report released last year by the United Nations found that thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the old quarter in recent years, and those who remain are forced to make long detours through multiple Israeli military checkpoints to access basic services, such as schools and hospitals.
In recent weeks, Palestinian activists have used the anniversary to demand a loosening of restrictions.
“We were victims, and now we’re being banished,” said Issa Amro, who heads a group called Youth Against Settlements that on Feb. 21 led a march calling for Shuhada Street to be reopened to Palestinians.
Nidal does not care for protests. He planned to mark the anniversary of the shooting by attending a small ceremony at the mosque, but he also wishes things would return to the way they were. Before the massacre, he could walk 100 feet from his home to the entrance of the mosque without having to pass through a checkpoint, and he could have guests over without Israeli permission.
“The cameras are on us all the time,” Nidal said. He asked to be identified by only his first name because he fears retribution from soldiers for inviting a journalist into his home without authorization.
Nidal had planned to skip prayers that morning 20 years ago. He was working at a construction site at the time and had told his mother that he needed a few extra hours of sleep. But when the dawn call to prayer rang out, he was inspired. He lurched out of bed, put on a suit and went to pray.
It was the holy month of Ramadan, and the mosque was crowded. Nidal was standing in the back of the hall, about to kneel, when the bullets struck him. He was one of the first people shot by Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born physician and member of the ultra-right Kach movement living in a settlement outside Hebron. Goldstein had often talked about his desire to clear Palestinians from land held by the Jewish people during biblical times.
Goldstein was beaten to death in the mosque by Palestinian worshipers; Nidal was taken to a hospital in Ramallah, where he underwent surgery that saved his life. He is now married, with two sons and two daughters, but has limited mobility in one arm and still suffers breathing problems.
Despite the presence of Israeli soldiers on nearly every block in the Old City, violence remains an almost everyday occurrence. The U.N. found that in 2012 and 2013, about 700 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces or settlers, and 44 Israelis were injured by Palestinians.
Nidal says he harbors no hostility.
“The person who shot me is dead,” he said. “Why should I carry this anger inside me?”
But he said it is difficult to pass through security points without thinking about the shooting at the mosque. “It’s a constant reminder,” he said.
Crimea’s Bloody Past Is a Key to Its Present
By David M. Herszenhorn, NY Times, Feb. 27, 2014
KIEV, Ukraine—On Thursday, masked gunmen vowing loyalty to Russia seized the Parliament building in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea.
The simple explanation was that pro-Russian demonstrators in Crimea, a peninsula of Ukraine that juts into the Black Sea, were unhappy with the political developments here in Kiev, where three months of civic unrest led to the ouster on Saturday of President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
In a historic sense, however, Thursday’s events were as much about Russia’s relationship with Ukraine as they were about Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine. Crimea, a multiethnic region populated by Russians, Ukrainians and Tatars, has been the focus of territorial disputes for centuries, and in recent decades it has frequently been a source of tension between Ukraine and Russia.
Before this week, the most recent of these disputes occurred in May 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Crimean Parliament declared independence from Ukraine. And there has always been an expectation that when things become tense between Russia and Ukraine, that tension is likely to be felt must acutely in Crimea.
“The Crimean peninsula has become an arena for the duel between Kiev and Moscow on political, economic, military and territorial disputes,” Victor Zaborsky, an expert on the region, wrote in a 1995 paper for the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
The 1992 dispute was resolved with an agreement known as the Act on Division of Power Between Authorities of Ukraine and Republic of Crimea, which granted Crimea autonomous status within Ukraine.
In that sense, it is similar to the status of Chechnya within Russia. Chechnya’s autonomy nods to that region’s distinct Chechen language and Muslim religion, while in Crimea, such autonomy acknowledges that the political and cultural identity is often more Russian than Ukrainian.
Historically, Crimea has been a crossroads for stampeding empires, and it has been occupied or overrun by Greeks, Huns, Russians, Byzantines, Ottoman Turks, Golden Horde Tatars, Mongols and others. It became part of Ukraine in 1954, when the Soviet ruler Nikita S. Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine, then a Soviet republic, as a gift to mark the fraternal bond between Ukraine and Russia.
As part of the 1992 dispute, Russia’s Parliament voted symbolically to rescind the gift.
Crimea is home to the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, and also beach resorts that have long been favored by Russian and Ukrainian rulers. Russia now leases the naval installations, under a controversial deal that Mr. Yanukovych agreed in 2010 to extend by 25 years, until 2042, in an arrangement that includes discounts for Ukraine on Russian natural gas.
The worst of the conflicts over Crimea was the Crimean War of 1853-56. At least 750,000 people were killed.
Nominally a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire over a territorial dispute, it also ensnared France, Britain and the Italian kingdom of Sardinia, and the battlefield stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.
According to the most recent Ukrainian census, Crimea is home to about two million people, with nearly 60 percent identifying as Russian, nearly 25 percent as Ukrainian, and about 12 percent as Crimean Tatar, which gives the peninsula a sizable Muslim population.
The Tatars, who in 1944 were deported en masse by Stalin to Central Asia and have since returned to their homeland, have little affection for Moscow.
Russia’s deep historical ties to Crimea and especially its military interests in the naval bases help explain why President Vladimir V. Putin and the Kremlin were so adamantly opposed to efforts by Europe to tighten ties with Ukraine. The unrest in Kiev began last November when Mr. Yanukovych, under pressure from Russia, backed away from political and free trade agreements with the European Union that he had previously said he would sign.
While Russia has major economic interests in eastern Ukraine, its military-strategic interest is greatest in Crimea.
KIEV, Ukraine—On Thursday, masked gunmen vowing loyalty to Russia seized the Parliament building in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea.
The simple explanation was that pro-Russian demonstrators in Crimea, a peninsula of Ukraine that juts into the Black Sea, were unhappy with the political developments here in Kiev, where three months of civic unrest led to the ouster on Saturday of President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
In a historic sense, however, Thursday’s events were as much about Russia’s relationship with Ukraine as they were about Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine. Crimea, a multiethnic region populated by Russians, Ukrainians and Tatars, has been the focus of territorial disputes for centuries, and in recent decades it has frequently been a source of tension between Ukraine and Russia.
Before this week, the most recent of these disputes occurred in May 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Crimean Parliament declared independence from Ukraine. And there has always been an expectation that when things become tense between Russia and Ukraine, that tension is likely to be felt must acutely in Crimea.
“The Crimean peninsula has become an arena for the duel between Kiev and Moscow on political, economic, military and territorial disputes,” Victor Zaborsky, an expert on the region, wrote in a 1995 paper for the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
The 1992 dispute was resolved with an agreement known as the Act on Division of Power Between Authorities of Ukraine and Republic of Crimea, which granted Crimea autonomous status within Ukraine.
In that sense, it is similar to the status of Chechnya within Russia. Chechnya’s autonomy nods to that region’s distinct Chechen language and Muslim religion, while in Crimea, such autonomy acknowledges that the political and cultural identity is often more Russian than Ukrainian.
Historically, Crimea has been a crossroads for stampeding empires, and it has been occupied or overrun by Greeks, Huns, Russians, Byzantines, Ottoman Turks, Golden Horde Tatars, Mongols and others. It became part of Ukraine in 1954, when the Soviet ruler Nikita S. Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine, then a Soviet republic, as a gift to mark the fraternal bond between Ukraine and Russia.
As part of the 1992 dispute, Russia’s Parliament voted symbolically to rescind the gift.
Crimea is home to the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, and also beach resorts that have long been favored by Russian and Ukrainian rulers. Russia now leases the naval installations, under a controversial deal that Mr. Yanukovych agreed in 2010 to extend by 25 years, until 2042, in an arrangement that includes discounts for Ukraine on Russian natural gas.
The worst of the conflicts over Crimea was the Crimean War of 1853-56. At least 750,000 people were killed.
Nominally a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire over a territorial dispute, it also ensnared France, Britain and the Italian kingdom of Sardinia, and the battlefield stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.
According to the most recent Ukrainian census, Crimea is home to about two million people, with nearly 60 percent identifying as Russian, nearly 25 percent as Ukrainian, and about 12 percent as Crimean Tatar, which gives the peninsula a sizable Muslim population.
The Tatars, who in 1944 were deported en masse by Stalin to Central Asia and have since returned to their homeland, have little affection for Moscow.
Russia’s deep historical ties to Crimea and especially its military interests in the naval bases help explain why President Vladimir V. Putin and the Kremlin were so adamantly opposed to efforts by Europe to tighten ties with Ukraine. The unrest in Kiev began last November when Mr. Yanukovych, under pressure from Russia, backed away from political and free trade agreements with the European Union that he had previously said he would sign.
While Russia has major economic interests in eastern Ukraine, its military-strategic interest is greatest in Crimea.
Armed Men Take Position at Two Airports in Crimea
By Andrew Higgins and Patrick Reevell, NY Times, Feb. 28, 2014
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine—Amid fears of a Kremlin-backed separatist rebellion here against Ukraine’s fledgling government, armed men in military uniforms took up positions at two Crimean airports as Ukraine’s interior minister warned of “a direct provocation,” but there was no sign of any violence.
In Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, a large number of masked armed men were stationed at the international airport Friday morning. They were dressed in camouflage and carrying assault rifles, but their military uniforms bore no insignia. It was not clear who they were and they declined to answer questions.
In Kiev, the speaker of Parliament, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, who is now the acting president of Ukraine, convened a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council to discuss the situation in Crimea.
Announcing the meeting in Parliament, Mr. Turchynov said, “Terrorists with automatic weapons, judged by our special services to be professional soldiers, tried to take control of the airport in Crimea.”
The men took up positions around a central administrative building, but they did not appear to enter the terminals. The airport, by all appearances, was operating normally, with flights arriving and departing roughly on schedule.
One local resident who was at the airport said that he did not know who the men were. “They’re not talking,” he said.
Meanwhile, another confrontation was underway at a second airport, called Belbek, that is used for military and some civilian flights.
In a post on his Facebook page, the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said that units believed to be affiliated with the Russian military had blocked access to the airport overnight, with some Ukrainian military personnel and border guards inside. Mr. Avakov wrote that the men blocking the airport were also wearing camouflage uniforms with no identifying insignia, but he added, “They do not hide their affiliation.”
Mr. Avakov said that the airport was not functioning but that “There is no armed conflict yet.”
At the international airport, Mr. Avakov said, the Ukrainian authorities confronted the armed men and told them, “You soldiers have no right to be located here.” The uniformed men responded curtly, “We do not have instructions to negotiate with you,” he added.
“Tension is building,” Mr. Avakov wrote on Facebook, adding: “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”
Igor K. Tresilaty, who identified himself as assistant to the general director at the international airport, said Friday that the soldiers were remaining in common areas outside the airport, in the restaurant and in parking lots.
He added that he did not know who they were and expressed no curiosity about them, saying only that they looked professional.
“They’re walking around, but we, nor the police, can’t have any complaint against them because they’re not violating anything, they’re not touching anyone,” Mr. Tresilaty said.
He said that some of the soldiers had tried to occupy the working areas of the airport overnight but that the authorities there had not allowed it.
When a reporter suggested removing the soldiers, he invited journalists to attempt ejecting them if they felt up to the task. He said the airport was functioning normally, with no delays or cancellations.
The rapid-fire developments came a day after a well-orchestrated power grab by pro-Russian forces played out across Simferopol on Thursday: Armed militants took control of government buildings; crowds filled the streets chanting “Russia, Russia,” and legislators called for a vote to redefine relations with Ukraine. The region is currently autonomous, meaning it has greater local control over its affairs.
Police officers, nominally under the control of the Ministry of Interior in Kiev, made little or no effort to control the crowds and, in some cases, even applauded their pro-Russia zeal. The police stood aside as the armed militants who seized government buildings overnight on Thursday built a barricade outside the regional legislature. The authorities ordered an emergency holiday, leaving streets mostly empty except for the protesters chanting for Russia, and many shops closed.
The rush of events in Crimea, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, accelerated the forces tugging at Ukraine since the ouster last weekend of President Viktor F. Yanukovych. The events also deepened a dangerous rift between Ukraine’s new leadership and the Kremlin, which has refused to recognize the new government and now appears to have given shelter to the ousted president and added a new element of uncertainty to Russia’s relations with the West. Mr. Yanukovych, last sighted in Crimea over the weekend, appears to have since been spirited to Moscow via a Russian naval base in Sevastopol, the region’s biggest city, which last Friday forced its Kiev-appointed mayor to resign in favor of a Russian businessman.
Many people in Crimea, even those who denounce the new leadership in Kiev as fascist, scorn the former president as a corrupt coward and say they have little desire to see him return. But the crowd outside Parliament in Simferopol cheered on Thursday as a protester with a bullhorn read out a statement released by Russian news agencies in which Mr. Yanukovych declared himself Ukraine’s only legitimate leader and said that Russian-speaking regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, including Crimea, would “not accept the anarchy and outright lawlessness” that has gripped the country.
“Right, right,” the crowd shouted.
By midafternoon, legislators—at least those who could get through the scrum of pro-Russia protesters outside, past barricades blocking the entrance and past unidentified armed insurgents inside—met to discuss holding a referendum on the future status of the volatile Black Sea peninsula. “Today we made a decision, a historic decision,” said Vladimir Konstantinov, the chairman of the legislature, who explained that a referendum would be held on May 25 to decide whether to “grant the autonomous republic the status of a state.”
But it was unclear what he meant exactly, and some local news reports said that the referendum would ask residents of Crimea only whether they wanted enhanced autonomy, not outright secession.
If a referendum were held, it would almost certainly lead to an overwhelming popular vote in favor of weaker links with Ukraine and even outright secession.
The authorities in Kiev would almost certainly dismiss any referendum as invalid. But a vote on Crimea’s status could be a gift for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who could then cast criticism of the secessionist cause in Ukraine and abroad as an affront to democracy.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea, a tinderbox of ethnic, political and religious divisions, has had repeated outbursts of pro-Russia fervor that all ultimately fizzled. But the events Thursday, coupled with the fragile state of Ukraine’s new and barely functioning central government, represented a far more serious challenge to the territorial integrity of the country and an already unsettled geopolitical balance between Russia and the West.
Passions for Russia mixed throughout the day with deep nostalgia for the Soviet Union, with protesters singing the Soviet national anthem and military veterans waving the colors of long-disbanded Soviet military units.
Russia controlled Crimea for centuries but lost it to Ukraine in 1954 after what seemed at the time an inconsequential redrawing of internal Soviet boundaries by Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Communist Party leader.
The pace of developments, set largely by well-organized pro-Russia groups that marched through Simferopol in military-style formations, has perhaps outrun even Moscow’s capacity for geopolitical machinations. Having mobilized its air and ground forces around Ukraine on Wednesday for previously unannounced military exercises in Western Russia, Moscow has raised expectations among its most zealous supporters that it will intervene to support their cause.
But any open military intervention would risk plunging Crimea, a vital outpost for the Russian Navy, into bloody chaos and also undermine security inside Russia, particularly in heavily Muslim areas.
Crimea’s Tatars have no record of extremism, but armed intervention by Moscow could strengthen the hand of tiny militant Islamic groups that have long tried, but failed, to rally Tatars for jihad.
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine—Amid fears of a Kremlin-backed separatist rebellion here against Ukraine’s fledgling government, armed men in military uniforms took up positions at two Crimean airports as Ukraine’s interior minister warned of “a direct provocation,” but there was no sign of any violence.
In Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea, a large number of masked armed men were stationed at the international airport Friday morning. They were dressed in camouflage and carrying assault rifles, but their military uniforms bore no insignia. It was not clear who they were and they declined to answer questions.
In Kiev, the speaker of Parliament, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, who is now the acting president of Ukraine, convened a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council to discuss the situation in Crimea.
Announcing the meeting in Parliament, Mr. Turchynov said, “Terrorists with automatic weapons, judged by our special services to be professional soldiers, tried to take control of the airport in Crimea.”
The men took up positions around a central administrative building, but they did not appear to enter the terminals. The airport, by all appearances, was operating normally, with flights arriving and departing roughly on schedule.
One local resident who was at the airport said that he did not know who the men were. “They’re not talking,” he said.
Meanwhile, another confrontation was underway at a second airport, called Belbek, that is used for military and some civilian flights.
In a post on his Facebook page, the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said that units believed to be affiliated with the Russian military had blocked access to the airport overnight, with some Ukrainian military personnel and border guards inside. Mr. Avakov wrote that the men blocking the airport were also wearing camouflage uniforms with no identifying insignia, but he added, “They do not hide their affiliation.”
Mr. Avakov said that the airport was not functioning but that “There is no armed conflict yet.”
At the international airport, Mr. Avakov said, the Ukrainian authorities confronted the armed men and told them, “You soldiers have no right to be located here.” The uniformed men responded curtly, “We do not have instructions to negotiate with you,” he added.
“Tension is building,” Mr. Avakov wrote on Facebook, adding: “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”
Igor K. Tresilaty, who identified himself as assistant to the general director at the international airport, said Friday that the soldiers were remaining in common areas outside the airport, in the restaurant and in parking lots.
He added that he did not know who they were and expressed no curiosity about them, saying only that they looked professional.
“They’re walking around, but we, nor the police, can’t have any complaint against them because they’re not violating anything, they’re not touching anyone,” Mr. Tresilaty said.
He said that some of the soldiers had tried to occupy the working areas of the airport overnight but that the authorities there had not allowed it.
When a reporter suggested removing the soldiers, he invited journalists to attempt ejecting them if they felt up to the task. He said the airport was functioning normally, with no delays or cancellations.
The rapid-fire developments came a day after a well-orchestrated power grab by pro-Russian forces played out across Simferopol on Thursday: Armed militants took control of government buildings; crowds filled the streets chanting “Russia, Russia,” and legislators called for a vote to redefine relations with Ukraine. The region is currently autonomous, meaning it has greater local control over its affairs.
Police officers, nominally under the control of the Ministry of Interior in Kiev, made little or no effort to control the crowds and, in some cases, even applauded their pro-Russia zeal. The police stood aside as the armed militants who seized government buildings overnight on Thursday built a barricade outside the regional legislature. The authorities ordered an emergency holiday, leaving streets mostly empty except for the protesters chanting for Russia, and many shops closed.
The rush of events in Crimea, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, accelerated the forces tugging at Ukraine since the ouster last weekend of President Viktor F. Yanukovych. The events also deepened a dangerous rift between Ukraine’s new leadership and the Kremlin, which has refused to recognize the new government and now appears to have given shelter to the ousted president and added a new element of uncertainty to Russia’s relations with the West. Mr. Yanukovych, last sighted in Crimea over the weekend, appears to have since been spirited to Moscow via a Russian naval base in Sevastopol, the region’s biggest city, which last Friday forced its Kiev-appointed mayor to resign in favor of a Russian businessman.
Many people in Crimea, even those who denounce the new leadership in Kiev as fascist, scorn the former president as a corrupt coward and say they have little desire to see him return. But the crowd outside Parliament in Simferopol cheered on Thursday as a protester with a bullhorn read out a statement released by Russian news agencies in which Mr. Yanukovych declared himself Ukraine’s only legitimate leader and said that Russian-speaking regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, including Crimea, would “not accept the anarchy and outright lawlessness” that has gripped the country.
“Right, right,” the crowd shouted.
By midafternoon, legislators—at least those who could get through the scrum of pro-Russia protesters outside, past barricades blocking the entrance and past unidentified armed insurgents inside—met to discuss holding a referendum on the future status of the volatile Black Sea peninsula. “Today we made a decision, a historic decision,” said Vladimir Konstantinov, the chairman of the legislature, who explained that a referendum would be held on May 25 to decide whether to “grant the autonomous republic the status of a state.”
But it was unclear what he meant exactly, and some local news reports said that the referendum would ask residents of Crimea only whether they wanted enhanced autonomy, not outright secession.
If a referendum were held, it would almost certainly lead to an overwhelming popular vote in favor of weaker links with Ukraine and even outright secession.
The authorities in Kiev would almost certainly dismiss any referendum as invalid. But a vote on Crimea’s status could be a gift for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who could then cast criticism of the secessionist cause in Ukraine and abroad as an affront to democracy.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea, a tinderbox of ethnic, political and religious divisions, has had repeated outbursts of pro-Russia fervor that all ultimately fizzled. But the events Thursday, coupled with the fragile state of Ukraine’s new and barely functioning central government, represented a far more serious challenge to the territorial integrity of the country and an already unsettled geopolitical balance between Russia and the West.
Passions for Russia mixed throughout the day with deep nostalgia for the Soviet Union, with protesters singing the Soviet national anthem and military veterans waving the colors of long-disbanded Soviet military units.
Russia controlled Crimea for centuries but lost it to Ukraine in 1954 after what seemed at the time an inconsequential redrawing of internal Soviet boundaries by Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Communist Party leader.
The pace of developments, set largely by well-organized pro-Russia groups that marched through Simferopol in military-style formations, has perhaps outrun even Moscow’s capacity for geopolitical machinations. Having mobilized its air and ground forces around Ukraine on Wednesday for previously unannounced military exercises in Western Russia, Moscow has raised expectations among its most zealous supporters that it will intervene to support their cause.
But any open military intervention would risk plunging Crimea, a vital outpost for the Russian Navy, into bloody chaos and also undermine security inside Russia, particularly in heavily Muslim areas.
Crimea’s Tatars have no record of extremism, but armed intervention by Moscow could strengthen the hand of tiny militant Islamic groups that have long tried, but failed, to rally Tatars for jihad.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Declare that Power Comes Out of the Barrels of their Guns
Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Declare that Power Comes Out of the Barrels of their Guns
Paul Craig Roberts
Reality on the ground in Ukraine contradicts the incompetent and immoral Obama regime’s portrait of Ukrainian democracy on the march.
To the extent that government exists in post-coup Ukraine, it is laws dictated by gun and threat wielding thugs of the neo-Nazi, Russophobic, ultra-nationalist, right-wing parties. Watch the video of the armed thug, Aleksandr Muzychko, who boosts of killing Russian soldiers in Chechnya, dictating to the Rovno regional parliament a grant of apartments to families of protesters.http://rt.com/news/radical-opposition-intimidating-techniques-882/
Read about the neo-nazis intimidating the Central Election Commission in order to secure rule and personnel changes in order to favor the ultra-right in the forthcoming elections. Thug Aleksandr Shevchenko informed the CEC that armed activists will remain in CEC offices in order to make certain that the election is not rigged against the neo-nazis. What he means, of course, is the armed thugs will make sure the neo-nazis win. If the neo-nazis don’t win, the chances are high that they will take power regardless.
Members of President Yanukovich’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, have been shot, had arrest warrants issued for them, have experienced home invasions and physical threats, and are resigning in droves in hopes of saving the lives of themselves and their families. The prosecutor’s office in the Volyn region (western Ukraine) has been ordered by ultra-nationalists to resign en masse .
Jewish synagogs and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches are being attacked.
To toot my own horn, I might have been the first and only to predict that Washington’s organization of pro-EU Ukrainian politicians into a coup against the elected government of Ukraine would destroy democracy and establish the precedent that force prevails over elections, thereby empowering the organized and armed extreme right-wing.
This is precisely what has happened. Note that there was no one in the Obama regime who had enough sense to see the obvious result of their smug, self-satisfied interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.
If a democratically elected president and ruling party are so easily driven from power by armed neo-nazis, what chance do Washington’s paid stooges among the so-called “moderates” have of forming a government? These are the corrupt people who wanted President Yanukovich out of office so that they could take the money instead. The corruption charge against Yanukovich was cover for the disloyal, undemocratic “moderate” schemers to seize power and be paid millions of dollars by Washington for taking Ukraine into the EU and NATO.
The Washington-paid schemers are now reaping their just reward as they sit in craven silence while neo-nazi Muzychko wielding an Ak-47 challenges government officials to their face: “I dare you take my gun!”
Only Obama, Susan Rice, Victoria Nuland, Washington’s European puppets, and the Western prostitute media can describe the brutal reality of post-coup Ukraine as “the forward march of democracy.”
The West now faces a real mess, and so does Russia. The presstitutes will keep the American public from ever knowing what has happened, and the Obama regime will never admit it. It is not always clear that even the Russians want to admit it. The intelligent, reasonable, and humane Russian Foreign Minister, a person 100 cuts above the despicable John Kerry, keeps speaking as if this is all a mistake and appealing to the Western governments to stand behind the agreement that they pressured President Yanukovich to sign.
Yanukovich is history, as are Washington’s “moderates.” The moderates are not only corrupt; they are stupid. The fools even disbanded the Riot Police, leaving themselves at the mercy of the armed right-wing nazi thugs.
Ukraine is out of control. This is what happens when an arrogant, but stupid, Assistant Secretary of State (Victoria Nuland) plots with an equally arrogant and stupid US ambassador (Pyatt) to put their candidates in power once their coup against the elected president succeeds. The ignorant and deluded who deny any such plotting occurred can listen to the conversation between Nuland and Pyatt here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSxaa-67yGM&feature=player_embedded
The situation will almost certainly lead to war. Only Putin’s diplomatic skills could prevent it. However, Putin has been demonized by Washington and the whores who comprise the US print and TV media. European and British politicians would have their Washington paychecks cut off if they aligned with Putin.
War is unavoidable, because the Western public is out to lunch. The more facts and information I provide, the more emails I receive defending the “sincere [and well paid] protesters’ honest protests against corruption,” as if corruption were the issue. I hear from Ukrainians and from those of Ukrainian ethnicity in Canada and the US that it is natural for Ukrainians to hate Russians because Ukrainians suffered under communism, as if suffering under communism, which disappeared in 1991, is unique to Ukrainians and has anything to do with the US coup that has fallen into neo-nazi hands,
No doubt. Many suffered under communism, including Russians. But was the suffering greater than the suffering of Japanese civilians twice nuked by the “Indispensable people,” or the suffering by German civilians whose cities were firebombed, like Tokyo, by the “exceptional people”?
Today Japan and Germany are Washington’s puppet states. In contrast, Ukraine was an independent country with a working relationship with Russia. It was this relationship that Washington wished to destroy.
Now that a reckless and incompetent Washington has opened Pandora’s Box, more evil has been released upon the world. The suffering will not be confined to Ukraine.
There are a number of reasons why the situation is likely to develop in a very bad way. One is that most people are unable to deal with reality even when reality directly confronts them. When I provide the facts as they are known, here are some of the responses I receive: “You are a Putin agent;” “you hate Ukrainians;” “you are defending corruption;” “you must not know how Ukrainians suffered at the hands of Stalin.”
Of course, having done Russian studies in graduate school, having been a member of the US-USSR student exchange program in 1961, having traveled in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, having published in scholarly journals of Slavic and Russian studies, having twice addressed the Soviet Academy of Sciences, having been invited to explain to the CIA why the Soviet economic collapse occurred despite the CIA’s predictions to the contrary, I wouldn’t know anything about how people suffered under communism. The willingness of readers to display to me their utter ignorance and stupidity is astonishing. There is a large number of people who think reality consists of their delusions.
Reality is simply too much for mentally and emotionally weak people who are capable of holding on to their delusions in the face of all evidence to the contrary. The masses of deluded people and the total inability of Washington, wallowing it its hubris, to admit a mistake, mean that Washington’s destabilization of Ukraine is a problem for us all.
RT reports that “Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an urgent military drill to test combat readiness of the armed forces across western and central Russia.” According to Russia’s Defense Minister, the surprise drill tested ground troops, Air Force, airborne troops and aerospace defense. http://rt.com/news/putin-drill-combat-army-864/
The Defense Minister said: “The drills are not connected with events in Ukraine at all.”
Yes, of course. The Defense Minister says this, because Putin still hopes that the EU will come to its senses. In my opinion, and I hope I am wrong, the European “leaders” are too corrupted by Washington’s money to have any sense. They are bought-and-paid-for. Nothing is important to them but money.
Ask yourself, why does Russia need at this time an urgent readiness test unrelated to Ukraine? Anyone familiar with geography knows that western and central Russia sit atop Ukraine.
Let us all cross our fingers that another war is not the consequence of the insouciant American public, the craven cowardice of the presstitute media, Washington’s corrupt European puppets, and the utter mendacity of the criminals who rule in Washington.
